


what I'd give for ghosts

by crookedspoon



Series: Creating God to Survive [13]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Author's Favorite, Gen, Ghosts, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 09:30:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2542739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lancia's haunted by a lack of ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what I'd give for ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etnoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/gifts).



> Written for the prompts "Katekyo Hitman Reborn, any cast member(s), who else has seen a ghost?" at [fic-promptly](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/291196.html) and "Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Lancia & Mukuro, what I'd give for ghosts" at [This Meme is Haunted](http://moetushie.dreamwidth.org/312836.html?thread=1502724#cmt1502724).

It's been years since he's last heard a voice in his head that was not his own. In the beginning, he's felt strangely empty, as if Mukuro had kept pieces of him after he finally managed to break free from this demonic boy. He was apprehensive around children at first, expecting them to smile at him with all too knowing eyes, to whisper secrets no one else could know, to take him places he fears to remember.

Now, he's no longer haunted.

He's been trying to create a normal life for himself. Even after the Vongola had cleared his record of the crimes Mukuro had committed in his name, Lancia couldn't bear to return home to Italy. He had no family, and whoever saw his face would likely remember a psychopathic murderer. His wrongdoings had been broadcast, unlike his exoneration. Which is just as well, because Mukuro would have easily found him in their homeland.

With nowhere to return to and no destination in mind, he drifted through Japan for a while, until he finally settled in Okinawa. He secured a job as bouncer in a local bar, not far away from a military base. His tough exterior must have pleased the owner enough to hire him without much of a background check.

For as long as he can remember, Lancia has looked like he owned a rap sheet longer than his forearm, despite his peaceful demeanor. For that reason, Mukuro chose him all those years ago, in what seemed another lifetime. He had managed to penetrate Lancia's soul with a single glance and saw the usefulness of Lancia's weak spirit.

He wants to trust the people around him, but he has learned from his mistakes

His shift started early today so he would be able to help his coworkers decorate for the Halloween party tonight. He has never celebrated it before, but he's been told the US soldiers stationed around here appreciated seasonal holidays and were wont to tip more. Lancia suspects dressing up as monsters is one way to hide from your demons.

He moves the tables in place, before Sasha, a former dancer from Russia, decks them with small pumpkins, whose carved faces glow eerily with the light of a tea candle. Tatsuro pastes cutouts of bats and wraiths on the walls, while Hideo obscures the ceiling corners behind artificial spiderwebs.

For a brief moment the scene before him transforms, as though transcending both time and space, and he sees M.M., Chikusa, and Ken make themselves at home in their rundown hideout at Kokuyo High. Tattered curtains sway in the wind that sweeps through broken windows, water damage stains the walls, the furniture is spotted, musty, rotting. The stench of decay is overpoweringly real and Lancia fights the impulse to gag.

He jumps when a hand touches his shoulder, afraid that Mukuro might cast him under a spell again with his serpent tongue. But it's only Sasha, whose kind features have scrunched up in concern.

"Something the matter, Lancia?" she asks in heavily accented Japanese and all of a sudden, he feels a tender solidarity with her. They're both strangers in a strange land, fleeing from their pasts. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Would it were that, he wants to say. Instead he says, strangely, "Have you ever seen a ghost?"

She shakes her head in wry amusement and delegates the question to the others.

"Don't tell me you believe in that spirit crap," Tatsuro calls.

"The only spirits I believe in are the ones you can drink," Hideo adds.

Their laughter is hearty and warm to Lancia's ears, unlike the cool, quiet chuckles that rang in his head like chimes. He can still hear them at night, when his defenses crumble and he remembers. His palms are clammy when he wakes and in the brief moment before he realises where (and who) he is, terror rises at the thought that this could be blood on his hands. Lancia never knew when Mukuro would seize control of his body; he used to be afraid of falling asleep, because insomnia was preferable to regaining consciousness to a backdrop of carnage of his own making. At least, that was what the evidence pointed at. Skin and clothes flecked with gore that wasn't his own, the murder weapon in his hand, dying squeals piercing his memory.

Lancia wrings his hands, intent on scrubbing them the first chance he gets. The blots on his conscience, however, he can't ever erase. Sometimes -- rarely -- he thinks he wouldn't mind sharing his head with Mukuro again. The boy knew how to soothe Lancia's searing guilt with his whispers in the night, his lullabies, his tales of lives he lived so long ago.

Lancia's current station in life seems dull in comparison.


End file.
